OK - I've seen nose art on aircraft and some of it is downright provocative - but a nose sculpture? I see two problems: 1. How are ya gonna keep it from blowing off? 2. How are ya gonna get the pilot to look for the enemy?

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I have not yet begun to fight! OTOH I have not yet begun to flee. Hmmmmm - choices, choices -always with the choices.

There was a point where Singapore had no CAP, but lots of bombers, I knew I should pull out the bombers and scatter them to other AF's but I did not. This was a mistake With KB rolling down towards Batavia and Soerbaja I had gotten out some of the choice transports in advance, but i was just a little slow. It is possible that if he continues south that he will get some kills If you have ships in repair in port, you cant wait too long to flee. you must take into account that it takes a day or 2 to get them out of repair status. this could get him some kills.

Now that my opponent has adapted to my level of aggression, and now that KB is active in the Batavia Palembang area I need to be patient and not try to force things with my SAGs, i need to try to not give away free kills. All in all i keep telling myself that I need to back off and pause and wait wait wait when i comes to my desire to strike back.

Its easy to get lulled into thinking that the Batavia/Soerbaja area has some protection because it has quite a few aircraft, well the bulk of these aircraft are useless for CAP, and strike aircraft are useless against KB if they go in unprotected. realistically what are a few groups of 9 level bombers going to do to KB without fighters to escort them? NOTHING BUT DIE. I tried to spread out some of the airgrps in this region so that he can't hit a lot of them at once. I set them on naval search so they wont try to strike KB.

Don't know if you are familiar with this, but a lot of new players don't get the max benefit out of their CAP because they put the aircraft at altitudes that don't fit their maneuver level. I know higher altitude is good for getting the first pass on the enemy planes, but early on the Japanese have the altitude ceiling sown up. For the Allies, the best thing is to keep their fighters near the top of their best maneuver band. E.g., for the P-40 and Buffalos the best maneuver numbers are between 5K and 15K feet. I would set them to CAP at 14K. The maneuver number gives them the best chance to dodge attacks, if they have good Defensive experience, and the best chance to get on an enemy's tail, if they have high enough Air experience.

The other big key to CAP air battles is to have greater numbers than the attackers.

Mohawks and Lancers have a 5-10 K best band. Click on the aircraft data yellow text for details.

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I have not yet begun to fight! OTOH I have not yet begun to flee. Hmmmmm - choices, choices -always with the choices.

BB generally I get the altitudes for fighters, from reading the FAQ, i've been checking aircraft data, sometimes i go one band above ideal. Most everything is at 15k 1/1/42 Singapore bombing Ally planes hit 3, Jap 28 but mostly damg'd by flak hvy bomb PI hvy bomb China

BB SAG shells Tarakan,and japs land. CD does nothing grrr

KB bombs Batavia 1 hit on my CA trying to get of port KB bombs Madioen and has 9 jap planes hit KB bombs Soerbaja and hits about 5 ships, this one hurts because i could not get CA Houston out of the repair dock quickly

Well, you could swim under the Golden Gate bridge .... oh, wait, you mean your subs! The strait between Formosa/Taiwan and the Chinese mainland is a natural channel, as is the deep sea hex just above Batan Island, between the Philippines and Formosa. If you are hunting warships and amphib TFs, sit at the choke points between his route of approach and your bases. Early on, you can get away with putting subs in shallow water because Japanese ASW is so bad. You could also try near his latest conquests since there are usually follow-up convoys of support troops and supplies.

Also keep an eye on the Detection Level of your subs. Once spotted it is easy to route traffic around them, and even if the TF has to pass through the same hex as the sub it seems to spot the sub and force it to dive more often if the sub has been detected a turn or two before. If I have a DL of 3 or more on a sub I move it at least 5 hexes for a few days and bring it back if I'm still interested in the original patrol area.

There are differing opinions on patrol areas - I like to keep mine small and focused, with little cruising around while others swear by the "patrol around target" setting which sets a random shaped zone over a large area. They put several subs in the same are with that setting to get coverage. As "godochaos" you may prefer the latter approach.

Good luck.

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I have not yet begun to fight! OTOH I have not yet begun to flee. Hmmmmm - choices, choices -always with the choices.

BB Very interesting about detection level, thanks for the advice. I'm going to have to take a close look at the reports. What you say makes sense though. I see subs I have a Japan that have no action and tons of SC's and PBs on them, they must be detected.

1-2-42 our CD at Tarakan lights an AK on fire PBY on naval search hits BB Hyuga with a bomb

PI bombed heavily moderate bombing china

Singapore large raid 21 jap planes damg'd

KB raids fleeing ships near Soerbaja, not too bad. 2 transports sunk, 2 damg'd. Not the end of the world

1-3-42 We landed a small listening post at shortland and the xAP got bombed by Rabaul, but troops landed CD guns at Tarrakan damg 2 ships. Tarrakan holds which surprises me

Ally subs are back and torpedo 2xAPs one with sinking sounds

Singapore heavy bombing and japs have 28 planes hit, most damgd We bomb Kuantuan port and miss Manilla hit by air set to ground attack 2 Japanese attacks in china and in one we lose 2000 men We are making progress in Sopac unhindered The japanese still have not bothered to take guam

About those search aircraft bombs - PBYs carry 500 pounders which can do considerable damage to any thing except ... a battleship. Even 1000 pounders do minimal damage to BBs. The best you could hope for is damage to a secondary or AA gun.

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I have not yet begun to fight! OTOH I have not yet begun to flee. Hmmmmm - choices, choices -always with the choices.

PG Isabel leaves Bataan, and consumed by RAGE attacks the anchorage at Legaspi, Spraying indiscriminate small arms fire everywhere and hitting 2 AKs before getting flattened by a DD.

Hvy Bombing Clark and lots of air activity in China

KB Bombs Balikpapan and then ducks south towards Soerbaja to bomb CA Houston as it leaves in a wounded state to head to safety after being bombed earlier. CA Houston and other damaged ships shake off the attack and get away

KB bombs Balikpapan, which is great with me, i know where kb is and im busy getting out lots of ships safely from the area. the houston was bombed trice yet easily got away. very odd how he did not try to bomb ports more when he saw he was hitting good targets.

1-8-41 odd turn, so I sent a surface combat group with CA's to Rabaul because he is unloading there again. Last turn they were in position to do there dash in so that they will arrive at night. Well they make the dash into Rabaul but they run into a CM 1 space out, they sink the CM and then they STOP. they do not retire, they do not advance to Rabaul they just sit there the whole turn 1 space away from Rabaul getting bombed. 1 CA medium dmg, 1 CA light dmg, 1 dd light dmg. very dissapointed. Really i got off lightly.

Jap subs torpedo an AP and 2 x TKs near soerbaja. The good news is i have stripped so much fuel and oil out of soerbaja that i cant really get any more!! woot Hvy japanese bombing of Manilla and Clark, ground attack to soften me up Japs bomb sing and johore bahru

Japs bomb in china, we ground bomb changsha and get some hits. Major Jap build up at Changsha. I dont mind turning changsha into stalingrad

1-11-42 NEWS FLASH US Carriers Bombed Rabaul and Kavieng today. Reports indicates lots and lots of bombs were dropped but accuracy was mixed. Here are the results of the Kavieng attack with 64 dauntlesses

1-11 And the bombing of Rabaul with 45 torpedo bombers additionally we did 1 small strike and probably sunk an AMC that was probably loaded as it was inbound. We did only PM attacks and loitered during the AM

1-12 Rant time: So last turn 3 fully loaded allied carriers raided rabaul with mixed results. But don't worry all those juicy Japanese cruisers and transports are going to get bombed in the AM and the PM this turn aren't they as i remain on station? NOPE. 3 Carriers sit and watch as the Japanese transports and cruisers sit and wait to be bombed. the bombs don't come. We fly one mission with 16 planes to attack 3 DD at Kavieng and miss, We bomb the port a little and miss. But the bulk of the aircraft on the carriers sit and do nothing with the japanese 3 spaces away. I checked and I do have sorties, now imagine if it had been Japanese carriers and my planes just sat there and did nothing? This fatefull choice to not bomb today results in the Japanese waltzing away the next day.

But don't worry too much, not all of the Allied forces are pacifists, see screenshot below of my helpers that I sent to Rabaul. But seriously how can i fight with confidence with my carriers when they won't fly sorties? The only possibility I can see would be bad weather over rabaul, because we refused to fly 2 groups i put on airfield atk on Rabaul.

So if you look at the screenshot above it says poor visibility due to rain, so maybe that is why my carriers flew no strikes at rabaul, but did at Kavieng. That rainstorm saved the lives of a lot of japs

Usually when none of your aircraft take off from carriers it is because the weather over the carrier TF is terrible. TBs need nearly prefect weather but the others will fly in thunderstorms or light rain or overcast but not in severe storms or heavy rain. You can find out what the weather was like in that hex AFTER the turn is over by mousing over the TF there.

Don't linger too long - looks like he flew in lots of naval aircraft to hit back and there are likely lots of subs trying to converge on your area of ops.

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I have not yet begun to fight! OTOH I have not yet begun to flee. Hmmmmm - choices, choices -always with the choices.

Japs subs torp an AK, ally subs miss Temuloh falls above Singapore, japanese moving VERY slowly to Singapore. It seems my opponent wants to hit Clark, Manilla and Singapore AFTER they run out of supply. I'm not too sure about this strategy, because it gives me time...